Re: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects
. Jaffe etal say in their first paragraph that charcoal is ubiquitous in the environment, where it slowly decomposes, but part of it is preserved for thousands of years . This long lifetime (clouded by the term part of) is rarely acknowledged by biochar's (very few) critics. 8. Jaffé et al.’s observation that the aromatic, dissolved fraction of BC behaves at least in part like bulk DOC may make tracking DBC that much easier.(Emphasis added) [RWL8: I think this similarity globally between BOC and BDC is the key new conclusion of the Jaffe paper and the Masiello introductory perspective. But we still have the word may re tracking. Presumably it will be many years before there is sufficient riverine DOC and DBC from biochar to even be detected. Perhaps insightful lab tests can be conducted sooner. [RWL9:My prior reading in this area says that biochar users are apt to lean towards lower temperature chars, where there is little production of PAH's - the clearly undesirable part of DBC. Neither paper is explicit on this PAH topic. So in sum, I remain confused as to what to expect for both a) future DBC release from biochar and b) the resultant DBC impacts - in rivers or the ocean. I would welcome other input on the significance of the Jaffe etal paper. I do not now think it raises any new hurdles for large-scale biochar introduction. RWL10 - see below Ron From: Greg Rau r...@llnl.gov To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 11:42:13 AM Subject: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects Here's the Science link: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6130/345.abstract From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Rau, Greg [r...@llnl.gov] Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 10:56 PM To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: [geo] Biochar: Downstream effects Press Release 13-069 Where Does Charcoal, or Black Carbon, in Soils Go? Scientists find surprising new answers in wetlands such as the Everglades [Charred boreal forest after a fire] Charred boreal forest after a fire has raged: where does the charcoal go? Credit and Larger Versionhttp://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=127577org=NSF April 18, 2013 Scientists have uncovered one of nature's long-kept secrets--the true fate of charcoal in the world's soils. The ability to determine the fate of charcoal is critical to knowledge of the global carbon budget, which in turn can help understand and mitigate climate change. However, until now, researchers only had scientific guesses about what happens to charcoal once it's incorporated into soil. They believed it stayed there. Surprisingly, most of these researchers were wrong. The findings of a new study that examines the result of charcoal once it is deposited into the soil are outlined in a paper published this week in the journal Science. The international team of researchers was led by scientists Rudolf Jaffe of Florida International University and Thorsten Dittmar of the German Max Planck Society. Most scientists thought charcoal was resistant, says Jaffe. They believed that once it was incorporated into soils, it stayed there. But if that were the case, soils would be black. Charcoal, or black carbon, is a residue generated by combustion including wildfires and the burning of fossil fuels. When charcoal forms, it is usually deposited into the soil. From a chemical perspective, no one really thought it dissolved, but it does, Jaffe says. It doesn't accumulate for a long time. It's exported into wetlands and rivers, eventually making its way to the oceans. It all started with a strange finding in the Everglades. At the National Science Foundation (NSF) Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site--one of 26 such NSF LTER sites in ecosystems around the world http://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/goodbye?http://www.lternet.edu/sites/map --Jaffe studied the glades' environmental chemistry. Dissolved organic carbon is known to be abundant in wetlands such as the Everglades and plays a critical role in the ecology of these systems. Jaffe wanted to learn more about what comprised the organic carbon in the Everglades. He and colleagues discovered that as much as 20 percent of the total dissolved organic carbon in the Everglades is charcoal. Surprised by the finding, the researchers shifted their focus to the origin of the dissolved charcoal. In an almost serendipitous scientific journey, Dittmar, head of the Max Planck Research Group for Marine Geochemistry at the University Oldenburg in Germany, was also tracing the paths of charcoal, but from an oceanographic
Re: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects
List: cc Greg, Andr Fred 1. This topic is receiving viral attention in biochar circles. I understand there will be a response soon at the site www.biochar-internatonal.org I have been part of dialogs with several of the Science articles authors, and do not perceive now that great concern is warranted.by biochar proponents (like myself). I am now reading two of the author-provided background papers and will come back if I find anything new besides the following. Here is a probably pertinent quote from one of these background papers : Photo-lability of deep ocean dissolved black carbon A. Stubbins1, J. Niggemann2, and T. Dittmar2 : Biogeosciences, 9, 1661–1670, 2012 Scaling the rapid photodegradation of DBC to rates of DOC photo-mineralisation for the global ocean leads to an estimated photo-chemical half-life for oceanic DBC of less than 800 years. This is more than an order of magnitude shorter than the apparent age of DBC in the ocean. These quoted ages of the ocean DBC reassures me more about the recalcitrance of bochar. 2. Andrew asked about the color of these higher temperature carbon hydrogen compounds (there are hundreds). At this site: http://www.indianalivinggreen.com/polycyclic-aromatic-hydrocarbons/ was this sentence: The color of PAHs can vary from colorless to yellow-green. I cite this mainly to hope others on this list can provide more authoritative color data. This is a new topic in the biochar world. 3. Fred asked about learning something abut biochar by looking at a time-history of ocean color. Maybe, but there has been so little biochar added to soil and we think such a small fraction ever makes it to the ocean, that it should be difficult to tie anything historical to biochar. Biochar will be placed more carefully below surface (for economic reasons) than will occur for most lightning-generated char. 4. One of the biochar analysts looking at this today noted the issue of soil erosion. This next sentence came from a Wiki Each year, about 75 billion tons of soil is eroded from the land—a rate that is about 13-40 times as fast as the natural rate of erosion. Biochar proponents claim that biochar will help prevent erosion by improving tilth. This erosion release probably increased ocean albedo - but do we want that? 5. My guess (nothing more at this point) is that this will not be a show-stopper for biochar. But I welcome hearing other opinions, as this topic has already been used negatively. That was not the intent of the authors. Ron - Original Message - From: Fred Zimmerman geoengineerin...@gmail.com To: Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com Cc: Ronal Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net, Greg Rau r...@llnl.gov, geoengineering geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Monday, April 29, 2013 6:33:46 AM Subject: Re: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects Excellent question! math intuition says that could have a huge albedo effect. Such an effect might be teased out from the archive of satellite ocean color observations. It should be easy to answer whether the ocean is, overall, getting darker with time. --- Fred Zimmerman Geoengineering IT! Bringing together the worlds of geoengineering and information technology GE NewsFilter: http://geoengineeringIT.net:8080 On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 8:43 PM, Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com wrote: Does it make the oceans darker? A On 21 April 2013 01:39, rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Greg and list: I have tried to figure out whether this paper by Jaffe et al is apt to harm or help the introduction of biochar. My perception is that Jaffe and co-authors see a fairly strong connection to biochar, but I am not so sure. There is so little biochar in place that what was being measured was almost entirely from forest fires, which char can be very different from what is now being tested . The persons at NSF who wrote up the press release (below) certainly tied this article in to biochar development. For those who don't subscribe to Science, here is what Jaffe etal said about biochar - 4 sentences in the last part of the last paragraph (with my comments on each in bold): 1. Bio-char applications to soils have been proposed as an effective means of carbon sequestration (30). RWL1: Certainly true and non controversial. (30) is J. Lehmann, J. Gaunt, M. Rondon, Mitig. Adapt. Strat. Gl. 11, 403 (2006) and is a good early background reference (at a time before biochar received its present name). 2. This activity may further enhance the translocation and export of DBC to marine systems. [RWL2: Also true - but equally true could be may not. The key is whether the material now ending up as DBC is more apt to be used by microbes and fungus - ending up mostly as CO2. Biochar literature says almost nothing about DBC, except that it is small. Char is presently used to absorb (not release) the polyaromatic
Re: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects
introductory perspective. But we still have the word may re tracking. Presumably it will be many years before there is sufficient riverine DOC and DBC from biochar to even be detected. Perhaps insightful lab tests can be conducted sooner. [RWL9:My prior reading in this area says that biochar users are apt to lean towards lower temperature chars, where there is little production of PAH's - the clearly undesirable part of DBC. Neither paper is explicit on this PAH topic. So in sum, I remain confused as to what to expect for both a) future DBC release from biochar and b) the resultant DBC impacts - in rivers or the ocean. I would welcome other input on the significance of the Jaffe etal paper. I do not now think it raises any new hurdles for large-scale biochar introduction. RWL10 - see below Ron From: Greg Rau r...@llnl.gov To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 11:42:13 AM Subject: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects Here's the Science link: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6130/345.abstract From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Rau, Greg [r...@llnl.gov] Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 10:56 PM To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: [geo] Biochar: Downstream effects Press Release 13-069 Where Does Charcoal, or Black Carbon, in Soils Go? Scientists find surprising new answers in wetlands such as the Everglades [Charred boreal forest after a fire] Charred boreal forest after a fire has raged: where does the charcoal go? Credit and Larger Versionhttp://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=127577org=NSF April 18, 2013 Scientists have uncovered one of nature's long-kept secrets--the true fate of charcoal in the world's soils. The ability to determine the fate of charcoal is critical to knowledge of the global carbon budget, which in turn can help understand and mitigate climate change. However, until now, researchers only had scientific guesses about what happens to charcoal once it's incorporated into soil. They believed it stayed there. Surprisingly, most of these researchers were wrong. The findings of a new study that examines the result of charcoal once it is deposited into the soil are outlined in a paper published this week in the journal Science. The international team of researchers was led by scientists Rudolf Jaffe of Florida International University and Thorsten Dittmar of the German Max Planck Society. Most scientists thought charcoal was resistant, says Jaffe. They believed that once it was incorporated into soils, it stayed there. But if that were the case, soils would be black. Charcoal, or black carbon, is a residue generated by combustion including wildfires and the burning of fossil fuels. When charcoal forms, it is usually deposited into the soil. From a chemical perspective, no one really thought it dissolved, but it does, Jaffe says. It doesn't accumulate for a long time. It's exported into wetlands and rivers, eventually making its way to the oceans. It all started with a strange finding in the Everglades. At the National Science Foundation (NSF) Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site--one of 26 such NSF LTER sites in ecosystems around the worldhttp://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/goodbye?http://www.lternet.edu/sites/map--Jaffe studied the glades' environmental chemistry. Dissolved organic carbon is known to be abundant in wetlands such as the Everglades and plays a critical role in the ecology of these systems. Jaffe wanted to learn more about what comprised the organic carbon in the Everglades. He and colleagues discovered that as much as 20 percent of the total dissolved organic carbon in the Everglades is charcoal. Surprised by the finding, the researchers shifted their focus to the origin of the dissolved charcoal. In an almost serendipitous scientific journey, Dittmar, head of the Max Planck Research Group for Marine Geochemistry at the University Oldenburg in Germany, was also tracing the paths of charcoal, but from an oceanographic perspective. To map out a more comprehensive picture, the researchers joined forces. Their conclusion is that charcoal in soils is making its way into the world's waters. This study affirms the power of large-scale analyses made possible through international collaborations, says Saran Twombly, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research along with NSF's Directorate for Geosciences. What started out as a puzzling result from the Florida Everglades engaged scientists at other LTER sites in the U.S., and eventually expanded worldwide, says Twombly. The result is a major contribution to our understanding of the carbon cycle. Fire is probably an integral part of the global carbon cycle, says
Re: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects
be conducted sooner. [RWL9: My prior reading in this area says that biochar users are apt to lean towards lower temperature chars, where there is little production of PAH's - the clearly undesirable part of DBC. Neither paper is explicit on this PAH topic. So in sum, I remain confused as to what to expect for both a) future DBC release from biochar and b) the resultant DBC impacts - in rivers or the ocean. I would welcome other input on the significance of the Jaffe etal paper . I do not now think it raises any new hurdles for large-scale biochar introduction. RWL10 - see below Ron - Original Message - From: Greg Rau r...@llnl.gov To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, April 19, 2013 11:42:13 AM Subject: [geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects Here's the Science link: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6130/345.abstract From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Rau, Greg [r...@llnl.gov] Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 10:56 PM To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: [geo] Biochar: Downstream effects Press Release 13-069 Where Does Charcoal, or Black Carbon, in Soils Go? Scientists find surprising new answers in wetlands such as the Everglades [Charred boreal forest after a fire] Charred boreal forest after a fire has raged: where does the charcoal go? Credit and Larger Versionhttp://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=127577org=NSF April 18, 2013 Scientists have uncovered one of nature's long-kept secrets--the true fate of charcoal in the world's soils. The ability to determine the fate of charcoal is critical to knowledge of the global carbon budget, which in turn can help understand and mitigate climate change. However, until now, researchers only had scientific guesses about what happens to charcoal once it's incorporated into soil. They believed it stayed there. Surprisingly, most of these researchers were wrong. The findings of a new study that examines the result of charcoal once it is deposited into the soil are outlined in a paper published this week in the journal Science. The international team of researchers was led by scientists Rudolf Jaffe of Florida International University and Thorsten Dittmar of the German Max Planck Society. Most scientists thought charcoal was resistant, says Jaffe. They believed that once it was incorporated into soils, it stayed there. But if that were the case, soils would be black. Charcoal, or black carbon, is a residue generated by combustion including wildfires and the burning of fossil fuels. When charcoal forms, it is usually deposited into the soil. From a chemical perspective, no one really thought it dissolved, but it does, Jaffe says. It doesn't accumulate for a long time. It's exported into wetlands and rivers, eventually making its way to the oceans. It all started with a strange finding in the Everglades. At the National Science Foundation (NSF) Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site--one of 26 such NSF LTER sites in ecosystems around the worldhttp://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/goodbye?http://www.lternet.edu/sites/map--Jaffe studied the glades' environmental chemistry. Dissolved organic carbon is known to be abundant in wetlands such as the Everglades and plays a critical role in the ecology of these systems. Jaffe wanted to learn more about what comprised the organic carbon in the Everglades. He and colleagues discovered that as much as 20 percent of the total dissolved organic carbon in the Everglades is charcoal. Surprised by the finding, the researchers shifted their focus to the origin of the dissolved charcoal. In an almost serendipitous scientific journey, Dittmar, head of the Max Planck Research Group for Marine Geochemistry at the University Oldenburg in Germany, was also tracing the paths of charcoal, but from an oceanographic perspective. To map out a more comprehensive picture, the researchers joined forces. Their conclusion is that charcoal in soils is making its way into the world's waters. This study affirms the power of large-scale analyses made possible through international collaborations, says Saran Twombly, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research along with NSF's Directorate for Geosciences. What started out as a puzzling result from the Florida Everglades engaged scientists at other LTER sites in the U.S., and eventually expanded worldwide, says Twombly. The result is a major contribution to our understanding of the carbon cycle. Fire is probably an integral part of the global carbon cycle, says Dittmar, its effects seen from land to sea. The discovery carries significant implications for bioengineering, the scientists believe. The global carbon budget is a balancing act between sources that produce carbon and sources that remove
[geo] RE: Biochar: Downstream effects
Here's the Science link: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6130/345.abstract From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [geoengineering@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Rau, Greg [r...@llnl.gov] Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 10:56 PM To: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: [geo] Biochar: Downstream effects Press Release 13-069 Where Does Charcoal, or Black Carbon, in Soils Go? Scientists find surprising new answers in wetlands such as the Everglades [Charred boreal forest after a fire] Charred boreal forest after a fire has raged: where does the charcoal go? Credit and Larger Versionhttp://www.nsf.gov/news/news_images.jsp?cntn_id=127577org=NSF April 18, 2013 Scientists have uncovered one of nature's long-kept secrets--the true fate of charcoal in the world's soils. The ability to determine the fate of charcoal is critical to knowledge of the global carbon budget, which in turn can help understand and mitigate climate change. However, until now, researchers only had scientific guesses about what happens to charcoal once it's incorporated into soil. They believed it stayed there. Surprisingly, most of these researchers were wrong. The findings of a new study that examines the result of charcoal once it is deposited into the soil are outlined in a paper published this week in the journal Science. The international team of researchers was led by scientists Rudolf Jaffe of Florida International University and Thorsten Dittmar of the German Max Planck Society. Most scientists thought charcoal was resistant, says Jaffe. They believed that once it was incorporated into soils, it stayed there. But if that were the case, soils would be black. Charcoal, or black carbon, is a residue generated by combustion including wildfires and the burning of fossil fuels. When charcoal forms, it is usually deposited into the soil. From a chemical perspective, no one really thought it dissolved, but it does, Jaffe says. It doesn't accumulate for a long time. It's exported into wetlands and rivers, eventually making its way to the oceans. It all started with a strange finding in the Everglades. At the National Science Foundation (NSF) Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site--one of 26 such NSF LTER sites in ecosystems around the worldhttp://www.nsf.gov/cgi-bin/goodbye?http://www.lternet.edu/sites/map--Jaffe studied the glades' environmental chemistry. Dissolved organic carbon is known to be abundant in wetlands such as the Everglades and plays a critical role in the ecology of these systems. Jaffe wanted to learn more about what comprised the organic carbon in the Everglades. He and colleagues discovered that as much as 20 percent of the total dissolved organic carbon in the Everglades is charcoal. Surprised by the finding, the researchers shifted their focus to the origin of the dissolved charcoal. In an almost serendipitous scientific journey, Dittmar, head of the Max Planck Research Group for Marine Geochemistry at the University Oldenburg in Germany, was also tracing the paths of charcoal, but from an oceanographic perspective. To map out a more comprehensive picture, the researchers joined forces. Their conclusion is that charcoal in soils is making its way into the world's waters. This study affirms the power of large-scale analyses made possible through international collaborations, says Saran Twombly, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research along with NSF's Directorate for Geosciences. What started out as a puzzling result from the Florida Everglades engaged scientists at other LTER sites in the U.S., and eventually expanded worldwide, says Twombly. The result is a major contribution to our understanding of the carbon cycle. Fire is probably an integral part of the global carbon cycle, says Dittmar, its effects seen from land to sea. The discovery carries significant implications for bioengineering, the scientists believe. The global carbon budget is a balancing act between sources that produce carbon and sources that remove it. The new findings show that the amount of dissolved charcoal transported to the oceans is keeping pace with the total charcoal generated by fires annually on a global scale. While the environmental consequences of the accumulation of black carbon in surface and ocean waters are currently unknown, Jaffe said the findings mean that greater consideration should be given to carbon sequestration techniques. Biochar addition to soils is one such technique. Biochar technology is based on vegetation-derived charcoal that is added to agricultural soils as a means of sequestering carbon. As more people implement biochar technology, says Jaffe, they should take into consideration the potential dissolution of the charcoal to ensure that these techniques are environmentally friendly. Jaffe and Dittmar agree that there
